I'm an award-winning journalist with a particular interest in for-profit social enterprise, as well as entrepreneurship and small business in general. I've covered those areas for many many places, including The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Crain's New York Business, Inc. and Business Insider. As an entrepreneurial journalist--ie, a freelancer--I work from my home office in Pelham, NY.

Recycling Rethought: The UK Startup Printing Your Plastics Into Art

Would people be more interested in recycling plastic bottles if they could turn the material into works of art?

Stuart Jones thinks the answer is in the affirmative. That’s why he started Co2nscience, a social enterprise based in Bradford, West Yorkshire in the U.K., about a year ago. It sells “Stretcher Prints,” photographs printed on a soft stretchy material made from recycled plastic bottles to be used as wall art. The company, even as we speak, is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise 12,000 pounds (money, that is) so it can turn 140,000 bottles into prints.

It all started in 2004, when Jones, who was running a web design business, got the idea of creating CD and DVD packaging using a more ecologically friendly material than the usual orgy of plastic. In 2007 , he started wewow to sell packaging using cardboard, thereby saving, he says, 244 KG of CO2e per thousand units. He now has 15 different designs, selling to a mix of bands, nonprofits, and universities, among other places.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But, as the years went by, “CDs and DVDs were going one way–and that was down,” says Jones. So he set out to find another approach to producing something using recycled materials. After some research he came up with an idea: Working with recycling companies, he would create a special material out of plastic bottles and then, drawing on his design expertise, print photographs on the stuff. The pictures could be chosen from a number of standard choices or customers could provide their own photos.

Getting the material just right took some tinkering. At first, it was quite stiff, which posed a problem for shipping: The material was too inflexible to be folded up into a small enough size. After many months, they managed to produce a soft, felt-like substance that did the trick. Each print is made from 4 to 22 bottles.

Co2science, of course, isn’t the only social enterprise using recycled plastic bottles and other material. I’ve written about The Plastic Bank, which pays people in impoverished areas to turn in plastic, which is then recycled and made into useful items, and Rareform, a manufacturer of surfboard cases from billboard material. And there’s TerraCycle, the dean of social enterprises that create products from recycled stuff, using everything from drink pouches to diaper packaging.

Eventually, Jones envisions branching out to such products as wallets or bags. (He’s also trying to create the world’s largest print made from recycled bottles, for the publicity). “We want to get to the point where people will be careful always to recycle bottles so they can be reused,” he says. “We are championing this material, but we want others to help realize its potential, as well.”

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